1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that prints data sent from an external apparatus and, more particularly, to a printing apparatus operative to allow an operator to choose whether received print data is to be printed and/or stored in a non-volatile memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a recent advanced office automation system, personal computers, workstations and high-speed printers such as laser printers and dot-matrix printers are organized through a cable network so that print data stored in personal computers are transferred to the printers arbitrarily for printing.
Many kinds of printers equipped with storage devices for storing print data have been proposed. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 1-263064 discloses a printer that includes a floppy disk memory, a print mechanism and a controller and operates to receive print data from external devices, store the print data on the floppy disk, and thereafter retrieve and print the data so that the external devices can operate more efficiently. Some of these printers are equipped with a buffer memory for holding received print data temporarily instead of in the floppy disk memory.
However, the printer disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 1-263064 is designed to store all received print data at every data reception from an external device by halting the printing operation during the storing operation, resulting in an increased print time and degraded workability of the printer.